Folks used to hate them. Now Seminole residents are pushing for a roundabout.
For some motorists, a roundabout can be confusing, frightening, even downright maddening as they navigate their way counter-clockwise around an intersection.
But for others, the traffic circles are a blessing. They slow vehicles. They make intersections safer. Some say the structures can beautify an interchange.
Long unfamiliar to many American drivers, roundabouts have grown in popularity in recent years. That’s driven residents of the rural Seminole County community of Geneva to join officials in Oviedo in a fight that would have once been unthinkable.
They want county officials to build a roundabout at the increasingly busy intersection of County Road 426 and Lockwood Boulevard. The county, for its part, is insisting on a traffic signal, saying it would be cheaper and quicker to install.
“Most of the folks out here do not like traffic lights,” said Richard Creedon, of the Geneva Citizens Association. “We’re saying: ‘Let’s not put a traffic light in there now. Let’s first do a study.’ It just makes more sense…But the county is hell-bent for leather to do it, put up a traffic light.”
Oviedo Mayor Megan Sladek agrees, even though she voted last month for a city resolution to pitch in $62,478 toward the county’s $650,000 cost of a new traffic light. Sladek said she has now changed her mind.
“I don’t want people coming in from Geneva, getting to the edge of our city, and being greeted by a stop light,” she said. “What a jerk move that would be.”
People tend to have strong opinions about the traffic calming circles – originally a European method of keeping vehicles flowing safely at a crossroads.
The English rock band Yes was inspired to write the hit song, “Roundabout,” in the early 1970s while on a road trip through Scotland.
“Call it morning driving through the sound and in and out the valley,” sang Jon Anderson, who later explained he was on his way to meet his wife and found himself delighted with the circular travel. “In and around the lake….One mile over, we’ll be there and we’ll see you.”
But in the 1985 comedy National Lampoon’s European Vacation, actor Chevy Chase’s character has a far different experience: He drives into a large London roundabout and goes around for the rest of the day because he can’t figure it out.
Central Florida residents line up on either side of the Jon Anderson/Chevy Chase divide.
In Altamonte Springs, many residents opposed roundabouts during a recent community meeting regarding the county’s plans to install them along North Street and Raymond Avenue as part of the improvements for Rolling Hills Community Park.
Resident Joe Laikos predicted motorists would seek alternate routes through neighborhood streets to avoid the circles.
“If you are going west bound on North Street, it is easier to cut through (side streets), rather than go around two roundabouts,” he said in a comment card at the meeting.
But in Orlando, the city plans to build a roundabout on Edgewater Drive at Lakeview Street as part of an effort to make the avenue more pedestrian friendly.
This comes more than two decades after Orlando installed five speed-busting concrete roundabouts — with palm trees and flowering plants — along Concord Street in the downtown historic district. Within months several vehicles slammed into them.
In 2019, Seminole installed four roundabouts along West Seminole Boulevard to slow traffic.
“They are so maddening,” resident Genevieve Brainard told a Sentinel reporter at the time.
According to a 2021 report by the American Society of Civil Engineers, roundabouts are far more expensive than traffic signals, costing up to $2 million to construct. Multi-lane roundabouts can run substantially more.
But over time, local governments save money by not paying for the maintenance, electricity, and supplies that traffic lights require. Roundabouts are not affected by power outages, the report notes.
“There are also environmental benefits to roundabouts because fewer vehicles have to sit at traffic lights, idling and spewing greenhouse gasses into the air,” the report continues.
Tony Nelson, Seminole County’s engineer, said the Lockwood Boulevard and C.R. 429 intersection has had dozens of crashes in the past five years, including five that could have been prevented with a traffic signal.
“Right now there is a safety concern at that intersection,” Nelson said. “We’re trying to address safety. So the quickest thing we can do is put in a signal.”
Nelson said constructing a roundabout would take at least four years and cost about $2 million, three times more the cost of a traffic signal.
Still, Nelson said county officials are not opposed to the circular islands.
In fact, the county and state have plans to construct roundabouts near Oviedo along State Road 434 between State Road 417 and Mitchell Hammock Road.
“Roundabouts do slow down traffic,” Nelson said. “But 426, it’s a different story. People are flying on that road. One roundabout is not going to solve it. We have to do a study. We have to see a benefit to the cost. All that good stuff before we jump in.”
But for Creedon and other Geneva residents, a roundabout just inherently makes sense.
“The main reason for me is that it’s safer and less chances of a collision than a light,” said David McDonald, a resident since 1986. “If someone runs a red light, someone could get broadsided. That wouldn’t happen with a roundabout.”
